Meadowood's 12 Days: Kobe Desramaults
The Restaurant at Meadowood’s annual 12 Days of Christmas guest chef series is underway. Here at Inside Scoop, we’re reviving our own tradition of tracking each night’s exploration of cuisine from the chefs from around the world, through their words and their food — with a little help from Bonjwing Lee, a.k.a. the Ulterior Epicure, who is responsible for the gorgeous photos above.
You can check out past years here: 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010.
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There are some chefs that can easily articulate their food, and then there are those that, when you ask them about their style, they matter-of-factly respond that they’re just going to cook.
Evan Rich is kind of like that; when he and his wife Sarah opened Rich Table a few years back, he memorably described to me the food they would serve as such: “We’re going to go to the market, see what’s good, and cook it.”
Kobe Desramaults — the chef-owner of In De Wulf in Dranouter, Belgium; and the chef at the third night of Meadowood’s 12 Days of Christmas (Tuesday night) — had a similar reaction when describing his plan for the Meadowood dinner.
“We got the list of what would be typical in the garden at this time about a month ago, like the mushrooms,” Desramaults says. “From there we took some ideas and some product from the restaurant (in Belgium). Then we got here, we went to the gardens. Now, we have all the ingredients.”
That’s not to say Desramaults didn’t have a plan. He brought aged, cultured butter from Belgium (among some other treats) and a goal to bring some Belgian countryside flavor to Napa Valley. The night’s showstopper was probably his take on a traditional Flemish dish, kerremelkstampers. It was light, creamy, almost sticky mousseline-like dish made with buttermilk and potatoes, dusted with garden herbs and served alongside tiny fork-pliable potatoes cooked in salt, ash and clay.
The full menu, and wines from Littorai:
Day Three of the
Twelve Days of Christmas
December 9, 2014
salted and smoked mackerel
kohlrabi lovage apples
indewulf
oysters and whey sauce celeriac
indewulf
spiny tail chestnut purslane
the restaurant
kerremelkstampers
indewulf
bird in bread nasturtium onion
the restaurant
lamb jerusalem artichoke mushrooms
indewulf
beetroot yogurt wild berries
indewulf
chocolate preserved cherry tart
the restaurant
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Littorai ‘Mays Canyon’
Chardonnay 2012
Littorai ‘One Acre’
Pinot Noir 2009
Littorai ‘Savoy Vineyard’
Pinot Noir 2010
Littorai ‘The Haven Vineyard’
Pinot Noir 2011
Littorai ‘Hirsch Vineyard’
Pinot Noir 2011
Previously:
· Day One: Matthew Orlando, Amass (Copenhagen)
· Day Two: Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli of Frankies Spuntino (Brooklyn)